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YASS - Yet Another Space System

It seems there is a long standing tradition of every administration taking a crack at coding a space system. It almost always ends in bugs, complaints, and an eventual recode.

Naturally I can't resist the chance to get wrapped up in that fun myself. What Mreh and I have come up with is what we feel is the best aspects of both Stryder-like space and the current Kbl old style space. We've made realistic decisions and have hopefully added enough dynamic flare to the system that it will attract player interest.

Main Points

You can get to any planet from any planet. The current Kbl space has arbitrary routes that must go through another planet first. This has been done away with (in a sense…)

You can get to any planet from any planet in one command. (Three counting 'enter' and 'depart'). There is no thinking to be done other than “How much do I want to pay” (deciding how fast your shuttle goes) and “Where do I want to go”. The rest is automatic.

The code is clean, well documented, and designed to be built on, expanded, and used elsewhere. This means that we can add new features, and change things that don't work. The current Kbl space code is very brittle and static.

The concept of paths through space like the old Stryder system has returned. The Dune galaxy randomly connects all of the planets with travel routes between them. Not every planet gets connected to every other planet directly, but an indirect route is always possible and the system will compute the shortest route & fly it for you. As you pass through the atmosphere of each planet along the way you have the option of “jumping out early”. Might be useful for randomizing PK escape routes more.

In order to not drive everyone completely insane, every month players housed on each planet (based on guild location) will be able to invest solaris into route bids for the spacing guild. At the end of each month, the top 2 bidded routes will be added to the Spacing Guilds transportation system. What does that mean? If you're a Tleilaxu player that likes to kill on GP, but it happens that Tlx is three hops away from GP for the current uptime you can invest solaris in getting a new route added so you can get there in 1 hop directly.

Routes that are bought each month persist across reboots & crashes. If you dump solaris into a route it won't evaporate. They don't last forever, but it will likely be a month or two before they go away.

All other routes change on an uptime-by-uptime basis. Keeps the system dynamic and ensures no one guild is screwed over.

Non-planet destinations can be added very easily. I.e. space stations, asteroids, whatever. This was a main point of the Stryder system but the content was never there. Rather than promise it and not deliver I'll just say that in the event that such content is ever coded, it can be slotted into the space system super quick.

FAQ

Can you bid to increase the number of hops that other planets have to your planet?

Likely not. It's possible but I don't think it would work well.

While this would be possible, and probably “easy” done properly, it'd be a nightmare to:

Ensure graph connectivity the way Paradox has set it up.

Ensure that the path between planets X and Y contains at least n hops, while making sure that any intermediary planets still have an appropriate number of connections.

Ensure that all such paths between all planets X and Y maintain the right number of hops.

If the Fremen invest the solaris for a route to GP, can only the Fremen use it?

No. The Spacing Guild has no direct alliances. Everyone will be able to use the route from Arrakis to Giedi Prime.

Yeah, absolutely not. In addition to it being against the spirit of the theme, it'd be really hellish to code and maintain. And, would these routes count toward the number of routes available to a planet? And, if yes, what's to keep the graph connected? How do we prevent embargo'ing, say, the Sards? This idea becomes a nightmare if added, because people would just want more.

Bottom Line

The bottom line is that it will be the easiest to use space system ever, but it will be slower than what you are used to now. I argue that the new dynamic nature and the fact that player economy can control the routes offset this issue. If you disagree feel free to argue it (sanely).